


Dean/Cas poetry week

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Body Image, Castiel and Drug Use, Communication, Depression, Dissociation, Dysfunctional Relationships, Ficlet Collection, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Castiel, POV Dean Winchester, Poetry, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resentment, Self Confidence Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse, tumblr: deancaspoetryweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection for my Dean/Cas poetry week pieces, because publishing them individually got annoying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. this constant push and pull between us (i want you, yeah, but only when i don’t).

**Author's Note:**

> As the title and summary indicate, these were all written for Dean/Cas poetry week and crossposted to tumblr. Tumblr links will be at the start of each poem. The first poem is posted [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/55818286924/this-constant-push-and-pull-between-us-i-want).

I want you when you're not around  
but then you show up again, out of nowhere,  
unannounced like always, and I can't  
think of anything but how much I want  
you to just leave already. Because you're going  
to leave me anyway, so get it over with, why don't you.

My skin crawls when you get close to me,  
worming all up and down my body and no matter  
how much I scratch, the bug-legs feeling won't let up.  
But all I want is to blur the boundaries between us  
until we can all but erase them, wipe them away.

Nothing remains of all the unfortunate incidents,  
sure the scars line my body but soon enough, they  
fade into my skin. But when the big things went  
down, they disappeared—there was a miracle cure  
mysteriously on-hand (it took away my fangs and the  
ear-pounding sound of every heartbeat) or like a healer,  
you laid your goddamn hands on and cleaned up everything,  
especially if you're the one who caused it in the first place.

And I don't even mind how you've banged me up,  
but whatever happens, you never leave a trace behind,  
the only way I can remember you is traveling back  
to all those moments, and when we talk, you act as though  
nothing ever happened, all because the evidence is gone,  
all because you cleaned up the blood and mess.

I'm sorry, oh mister miracle mender, and  
I am sorry, Superman, but it doesn't get to work like that.  
Sometimes, you are a dragon and I'm locked inside your tower.  
Sometimes, you only want to save me, but not to deal with the fallout.  
I want to deal with you, but I guess I don't know how to do that either.  
Because nothing I can say to you ever comes out right.

So, like, let's try this again. How about: I love you so much,  
it's killing me, but then again, you've done that to me, too,  
and how much I want it should stop me dead in my tracks,  
it should make me reevaluate my fucking life or something like that,  
but you know what? I can think of worse ways to go out than you.


	2. with apologies to leonard cohen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by, and containing references to, Leonard Cohen's "[A Thousand Kisses Deep](http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/kisses.html)." Posted on tumblr [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/55826784200/with-apologies-to-leonard-cohen-x).

I would kiss you a thousand times  
if I thought that it would make a difference,  
if I thought that it might get you to stay—  
not even forever, I'd take it if you stayed the night at all.

Every time you come and go, I push  
back at how I don't mean that much to you.  
Or maybe I do, but you don't show it  
You don't know how and I guess that  
I don't know how to handle that sick intimacy,  
the way you see everything inside my eyes,  
inside my soul, but never say a word about it.

Are we so confined to sex—to fumbling fingers  
and pressing our bodies together in a hot wet mess—  
that we've forgotten how to talk to each other?  
Though I guess that implies that we knew how  
to do that in the first place. (I don't think we ever did,  
but I don't know about your assessment here.)

Sometimes, I feel that this body isn't mine.  
It's been your big brother's condom-slash-plaything,  
my father's tool to be broken and rebuilt in his own image,  
nothing about me is actually mine, it's just the afterimages  
of everyone who's pressed themselves into me,  
but even when you beat me down, you make me feel  
glimmering, unique, the central jewel in your crown of thorns.

So I scavenge for our time together, but that time is running out,  
I guess there's nothing we can do about it (there's nothing we  
can ever do about anything, at least not without even bigger, more  
fucked up sorts of consequences)—but I'd still kiss you a thousand times  
because maybe if I did that, you'd hang around for breakfast once.


	3. i can’t even blame you for your scorn, i’d probably be worse in your shoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted on tumblr [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/55894425688/i-cant-even-blame-you-for-your-scorn-id).

I know you wouldn't love me  
if I had stayed a monster  
if the cure hadn't worked  
and if I'd kept those fangs instead.

Your love, like everything else I've  
ever known, comes with conditions,  
stipulations that you've laid out for me  
even when you didn't mean to do it.

The way you talk to him makes  
perfectly clear the way you'd feel about  
me if I'd stayed like that—you'd hate me  
now, the same way that you hate him.

Because that righteousness burns inside  
you, brighter than the stars, and I'd be an  
abomination, a perversion of your Father's  
design, a blight, a scourge, an infestation.

But what you don't see—or maybe what  
you don't acknowledge—is that I'm already  
like that; it left stains behind I can't get rid  
of, never mind the many marks I had before.

Smite me, please, and get it over with already,  
and stop pretending that you don't want to,  
because I'm twisted up and tangled and  
only underneath your hands do I make any sense.

It's all so messy, when you look at it  
for any length of time—it's muddled up in snarls  
that I could spend all day unraveling for no  
results—but I need you, and sometimes, but only

sometimes, I think you maybe need me too.


	4. i think it's safe to say that we've both hurt each other, really

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr post: [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/55901314965/i-think-its-safe-to-say-that-weve-both-hurt-each).

why does everyone just assume that  
i don't want things for myself?

i guess you probably don't mean to do it  
but that doesn't mean you haven't fancied

that i only exist as far as your eyes see me,  
that i'm only here as long as you imagine me.

or maybe i've been wrong this whole time,  
scrapping it up, striving against the currents just

to prove that i exist, that i didn't just dream  
myself up, that there's more to me than

what i do for other people. but maybe that's all  
and maybe there's nothing i can do about that—

like clay in hands, we all give way into each other,  
we leave behind impressions of our fingerprints

and we crumble into one another until those  
boundaries—those tenuous lines between us—

disappear. so what imprints have i left on you,  
then? are you impervious to me, my influence, or

have i somehow created dents that i can't see,  
much less begin to understand? if so, then

show me, please. please, tell me that i've made  
a mark and prove to me i've walked the earth.


	5. the things to say when there's nothing left at all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr post: [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/55919198802/the-things-to-say-when-theres-nothing-left-at).

I would follow you into the  
valley of the shadow of death.  
I would trail after you down the  
long, dark road of good intentions.  
I would walk behind you as you  
led me through hellfire and even worse  
but still I often wonder how we  
wound up here, of all possible worlds.

Do you know how we ended up here?  
Do you know how I could let myself fall  
so low, scraping my useless wings along  
the bottom of this cesspool, this heap of dust?  
I think I knew at one point but I don't  
remember anymore, it's gone now, I can't  
get it back and I never thought to write it down,  
I never thought that I'd miss any of it.

You never laugh anymore, not that  
your laughter was particularly common  
before this happened to us, but you  
never smile either, I haven't seen your  
eyes crinkle up in ages and they must've  
forgotten how at this point or at least, that  
wouldn't surprise me. Nothing surprises me  
anymore, nothing really can.

Blinking at the cracked mirror, I see the  
spiderweb lines running down my face and  
breaking it up into distorted segments, an eye  
here, another eye there, parts of my cheeks  
that were never mine to start with—would I  
even see myself reflected in a plane of glass that's whole?  
It's all hazy, shadows upon shadows in a world of shades  
and I can dull myself to it, but never quite enough.

We are a tangle that I can't break free of,  
maybe I could have left with my brothers and my sisters,  
maybe I could have left you behind to break on your own,  
maybe I could have let you push me away, like you  
tried to do so many times—I never listened, and sometimes,  
I wish I had after all (not often though, only very rarely,  
only really when I'm vomiting blood or when you're  
drunk and dark and silent and there's nothing I can do).

But still, you're more than all the cracks like fault lines  
running through your face, your soul, your history.  
Those cracks don't make you vulnerable—they only prove  
that you've survived, and the stitched up bullet-holes show  
that you will keep surviving, until the bitter end,  
until you've saved our heap of dust and everyone on it. My  
Atlas, my Saint Sebastian, my Simon bar Kokhba—you carry so much,  
you have for so long; I only wish that I could carry you again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [An angel floats down--](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172245) by [hhopp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhopp/pseuds/hhopp)




End file.
